Ampersand: Sneak Attack

[Lizard]

Wait really, when did someone from WoTC state you could take rapier as a feat?

In another thread. I saw it. I think it was WOTC_Miko.

 

[fafhrd]

Miko

 

[mach1.9pants]

Wait really, when did someone from WoTC state you could take rapier as a feat?

yeah check out michelle on the rapier thread. Her Rogue took rapier proficiency as a feat. And she said it was totally worth it.
edit: same as everyone else

@Lizard: I can see what you are saying about using your powers against your party to gain advantage but, man, there is no way I would play with anyone who so wanted to go against the spirit of the rules. As a DM there is no way I'd let the players do it!

 

[Henry]

Yes, Henry! Now that you have experienced the Bo9S, you will never escape the Dark Side!

Yes, God help me, I started liking that crap when I started playing my Crusader. I still have my reservations about some of it (half of those maneuvers are magical as the day is long, and the martial adepts are spellcasters, no matter what they say!) but having per-encounter maneuvers are great fun for the purposes of playing the game itself. I'm not as averse to it as I once was.

 

[Fallen Seraph]

Thanks, missed it in the 9 pages worth of text

 

[mach1.9pants]

Thanks, missed it in the 9 pages worth of text

This thread is going for the big 1000 post shut-down, I can feel it!

 

[Lizard]

yeah check out michelle on the rapier thread. Her Rogue took rapier proficiency as a feat. And she said it was totally worth it.
edit: same as everyone else

@Lizard: I can see what you are saying about using your powers against your party to gain advantage but, man, there is no way I would play with anyone who so wanted to go against the spirit of the rules. As a DM there is no way I'd let the players do it!

Then you need to explain why it's impossible, why they can move an unwilling monster 4 squares but not a willing ally. (And if said ally is mind-controlled and thus a 'foe', can you use the power THEN?)

The more you have to special-case things, the more the game intrudes upon the game, if you get my drift.

Let's assume there are powers that let you get a healing surge once per encounter when you're damaged. Let's also assume that there are talents or feats which let you do something with a healing surge other than heal -- such as remove an ongoing condition. Neither of these is unlikely from what we've seen. There would, then, likely be many situation where you'd want to do just a little damage to a friend to trigger a condition. Perhaps your warlord has a great power he can only use if Bloodied, and he's just a few hit points shy, and his initiative is next...

Saying that all of your friends have magical forcefields that make them immune to your attacks is idiotic (and I've seen nothing in 4e to indicate this is so -- indeed, the justly reviled 'Golden Wyvern Adept' feat is designed to let you save your friends from your fireballs). So assume that teammates *will* use thei abilities on each other to give the group tactical advantage, and plan accordingly -- and hope the 4e designers did, too. (Cause if this thing didn't show up in playtest, playtest was botched.)

 

[ThirdWizard]

Then you need to explain why it's impossible, why they can move an unwilling monster 4 squares but not a willing ally. (And if said ally is mind-controlled and thus a 'foe', can you use the power THEN?)

Isn't that when you raise your eyebrow, and they look down sheepishly and try to play it off as a joke?

 

[mach1.9pants]

I still just think it is playing against the 'spirit' of the rules. It is for hurting the bad guy not helping the good guy. That is enough for me.
But I see where you get verisimiltude twinges, so I hope that WotC has thought of this. I think that they will have, I mean they ae gamers as well

 

[Lurker37]

Every time someone replies to "this rule doesn't work" with "but the DM can do..." or "but the DM can change...", GOD KILLS A KITTEN.

Please, think of the kittens.

*Looks at Hong's avatar.*

"this rule doesn't work"

"but the DM can change..."

"this rule doesn't work"

"but the DM can change..."

"this rule doesn't work"

"but the DM can change..."
.
.
(100 lines later)

"this rule doesn't work"

"but the DM can change..."

MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAA! Be afraid Hong! Be very afraid!

Right, so while we wait for God to kill Hong, here's my thoughts.

Fixed Hit points? HELL YES!!! Nothing worse than having the party plate-wearer roll a 1 on Hit points! Random hit points have never made a game I was in better, and caused several otherwise viable and intelligently-planned characters to be quietly retired or die in combats where they really should have lived. The number of times I've seen a DM simply grant a character a re-roll because he doesn't want to have to rebalance the rest of the campaign against a fighter with low hit points... the situation where we all felt such a thing was necessary just shouldn't have arisen in the first place.

Random hit points were, in my opinion, the single biggest flaw in previous editions of D&D

The power list is most definitely NOT complete - it doesn't even include all the powers listed in the builds.

Shurikens. Most likely a catch-all phrase for any small thrown blade. The problem with a phrase like 'throwing knife' is that it is by no means clear to a group of new players that this does not include throwing a normal dagger. So if "shuriken" is a category of small bladed throwing weapons which are too small to be wielded in melee then I have no problem with it. Every player at the table can instantly recognise what it is and understand that it is different to a melee dagger.

Looking at this and the weapon list in the DDI preview, I'm concluding that there has been a move to reduce the number of weapons in 4E. This allows the designers to have more powers, combat moves etc tied to a specific weapon, thus emphasising the difference of each, instead of having 20 different weapons that were all so similar in effect that they might as well have been the same thing to start with. So my expectation is that instead of 37 different types of sword we get four or five, some of which are harder to learn but should still have powers associated with them for those who spend the feat to master them.

As for the limitations on the types of weapons that can be used with different powers - we've yet to see if there are feats etc that can extend these options. For instance, there could be a note under its description that notes that rogues who become proficient with it can now use it with powers X,Y and Z. Or there may be rogue powers that specifically apply to rapiers. Perhaps there's a feat that extends the number of weapons a rogue can sneak attack with (Backstab, maybe?). Or perhaps swashbuckler is now a build meant for rangers now. Maybe the harpoon-wielding sailor with no traditional rogue skills is better modelled in 4E as an agile fighter. We just don't know. And we're not going to know until we see a lot more of the rules system.

Int on skills - again, we don't know enough yet. There may be a general category of int-based skills which are purely rolled for 'what does this character know about the gameworld?", which characters get a number of based on int.

So my overall reaction is that what we know so far looks very much to my liking, but it raises more questions. I am not, however, pessimistic about the answers to those questions at this time.

P.S. Nothing personal Hong. It's just that Richard from LFG is my hero.